The Bright

When she pressed the locket into my palm on her Last Day, my mother told me to keep it on me, tucked under the stiff, chalky clothing and out of sight. She insisted I only open it in the safety of our quarters, away from the Steward's prying eyes and eager cuffs. I didn’t have to ask why; they hammered that rule into me since before I was old enough to understand. Any unapproved possessions are a frivolity, and are therefore banned. It’s a miracle my mother managed to keep it hidden for so long, and her mother, and all the ones before. I don’t know how many mothers it’s been since we came to The Chasms. If I asked, they’d tell me that the first mother was born in The Chasm, and I would have believed it.

Since the locket came into my possession, I often think about what all those people before me might have seen; what their lives might have been like if there was ever someone who’s life was not like this. I wonder if it was any different from my reality: cold, bone-straight stone walls and yellowed lights that flicker like they’re taking their last breaths. I wonder how far back I’d have to go to find someone who could tell me. They tell us that there was no “before.” That The Chasms are all there ever was, and all that there ever will be. There was never any reason to question it, but after seeing the locket and its contents, I’m not so sure.

The surface is a silvery colour, though I could not name the type of metal. It reminds me of The Steward’s badges, although far less polished and much more primitive and made into a shape that I’ve never seen before, rounded twice at the top with a sharp point at the bottom. It hangs precariously by its thinning chain, and leaves a stain on the back of my neck that I dare use a teaspoon of our water supply to wash away at the end of each week. Though it’s tarnishing and dented with years of wear, I can almost make out a delicate pattern etched into its surface. My finger hypnotically traces it’s curves about a hundred times a day, up and around and over and down and repeat. I wonder what a world it must have been to allow such extravagant pleasures as a purposeless pattern. Though it is utterly useless, the tracery brings me a sort of joy, and prevents me from handing it in to the Leader as I should. It makes me think that perhaps the world of its creator considered joy to be a worthwhile pursuit, as valued as any other task. How different The Chasms would be if we thought like that too.

I don’t think I could ever forget the first time I saw the contents of the locket. Even if they ripped it from my grasp and declared tomorrow to be my Last Day, I think I’d still remember somehow. The existence of the locket was startling enough, but the photo inside was far beyond anything I had ever even considered dreaming of.

I’d seen photographs before, of course. Each new Leader is awarded the great honour of having theirs taken on the day of their ceremony. They hang in the Grand Corridor, on the way to the amphitheatre. It stretches on for miles. Countless faces; cold and emotionless as the stone they hang on. I never paid them much notice until now, but it struck me that there is a First Leader: a man with gaunt features and tunnel-dark eyes that bore into me from far in the past. His portrait hangs at the very beginning of the corridor, and I hesitate in front of it now each time I pass. Nobody else spares it a glance, but it raises a question in me, as so many things do now: what came before the first?

The photograph in my locket is very different from the Leaders. It’s in colour, fresh as the day it was taken, vibrant and bursting from it’s metal shell. I swear it nearly blinded me when I first saw it, light sparking behind my eyes and somewhere deep in my chest. I don’t have the words for what it contains, as there is nothing in The Chasms that resembles it, but every particle of my body longs to be in a place like that, a place where the dull stone ceiling opens to a great blue ceiling, and everything beneath it flourishes and glows with radiant warmth. Maybe it would kill me to stand there amongst so much light and colour, but I think it would be worth it. If I could choose the location of my own Last Day, I’d beg to be brought to the colour and the great blueness. Even a second there would be more precious than a lifetime of this.

There are two people in the photograph. I only noticed them the third time I opened the locket, as they are nearly unrecognizable as people to me. They are as filled with colour as the rest of the photo, blending right into the chaos. Their mouths are open in beaming expressions, arms twisted tightly around each other. With the exception of the diagrams in reproduction classes, they are far closer than I’d ever seen a couple get. Their clothes are heavily patterned and flowy, using far more fabric than is necessary, and their hair is long and glossy, allowed to tumble freely around their shoulders. The man has a nose like my father’s. The woman in the picture is wearing the locket.

I wonder who they are, if we’re related somehow. I wonder if she traced the etched metal as I do now, if my hair would look like hers if it weren’t shaved down to a soft fuzz. I wonder what happened to them, if they ever lived in The Chasms, or if they only knew the light their whole lives.

I wonder if they thought as I did that their world was all there ever would be. As twisted as it sounds, I think it gives me hope that they were wrong.